Discover Your Wild Sense in the City

Cities have two major components, people and buildings. Lots of both. It also has pace, lots of that too. Of the people, it’s where you would find variety. City people can be beautifully eclectic. All sorts colours, clothes and skin. All manner of cultures, entertainment and activities. In that I suppose is a sense of wild because for me, that touches my senses through it’s expansiveness. Sushi meets curry with all it’s smells, the sounds of jazz and grime, navy blue suits meeting electric blue hair.

Well thats how I feel, see or perceive it’s wildness. It is what stirs me as I walk through the streets and I like it, in doses. Of the buildings, there is a lot of grey. Which can be incredible stone or marble, constructed and crafted hundreds of years ago, or hewed recently. Both can look stunningly beautiful. To some of us, the side by side contrast could be considered wild-looking.

A city also witnesses a large number of wild nights out. Where we stretch our wings, if only we had them. We try everything, suck it all in. Yet the pace of these encounters, the pace of the business district and the city in general, for some of us, becomes unsustainable in time. It has a time it seems. By necessity we live in cities, yet people leave the cities deliberately too. People escape even. Seeking that different pace, often doing wind-down type holidays or even wild adventure safaris. I am left contemplating, what is truly wild in the cities? I guess that depends on what is wild to you….

Where the wild things are

I am currently in Milan. Not having lived in a city since I was a teenager I have needed to reacquaint myself with it’s smells, sharp lines and non-stop buzz. It has got me finding myself in the process – you see I’m a country girl. I’ve needed to find myself because it is easy to get consumed by the city and wound up by it. Through the grey, the streetlights and the lack of silence or horizons. The landscape of cities simply aren’t as vast or as intricate as the one that is inside me. Not for me anyway.

Milan isn’t famed for it’s stunning architecture but actually it has its gems. One of these gems are the countless apartment blocks, some are lucky to have balconies. Some of those balconies are wild. Truly wild.

For each balcony that is bereft of a single leaf of green there are at least 5 that are not. Even if its plastic, trying to replicate real trailing ivy. There are even full blown mimosa trees living on the fourth floor. It’s all rather spectacular.

In us there is this need. That wherever we live it appears: we need to bring a bit of nature or wild into our lives. In particular to our homes. It’s as if we are deliberately opening up our senses to nature and inviting it in. In the endless varieties of balconies there seems displayed, an individuals relationship to wild and/or nature. Yet it’s not on every balcony, so where is that sense of wild for that person being expressed and sensed? As individuals, we all intrinsically have a need to be free and the sense of wild encompasses that.

So, I ask, what is wild for you?

A walk on the wild side

There is an explosion almost of ‘wild’ things around. Books, films, TV programmes. Including the ‘go out there be wild, have adventure’ wild. That type of experience of wild is kinda easy. Be amongst the trees, the mountains, the wild animals and you can get the T-shirt (and the tattoo). It’s official, you are wild.

It’s about discovering what lies within you that wants to be wild

But what if that wild isn’t available to you, daily or financially. What then? What if that kind of wild isn’t wild to you at all and it’s something different altogether. Like: Dancing freely with no embarrassment. Being amongst men who have ditched their suit and shoes and opted to sit in a circle and for the first time in their life, share feelings. What if wild is stepping out of a relationship or job that no longer serves you because you want to make shoes instead. Wild is all these things and so, so much more. So how to be wild in the city…..

We are genetically connected to nature. We are made that way. Our senses, even our sixth sense is geared to serve us well in nature. Nature slows that cog inside us that winds up to city pace and then goes slow when we are barefoot. When time is dictated by the sun and not artificial light or working practices. Importantly, when we are in nature and/or being wild, we are healthier. Physically and emotionally. We simply are enjoying life more.

It’s not therefore that we couldn’t find wild in the city or be wild in the city, it’s more about discovering what lies within you that wants to be wild. Where and what are your passions, the things that stir you and then asking – are you living them?

Born to be wild

It may not matter whether we live in the city or not but what might matter more is that, we ask ourselves these questions so that we can live life well. From our childhoods on we have been told from a variety of sources to behave, to control our emotions, to not be with our passions. Have you got a plan, are you sticking to it. So revealing what were our once held dreams of what life could be and then experiencing them creates a wild and fulfilling life.

Living a wild life doesn’t mean we ditch participating and contributing in the world either. For it is a delusion to think that we cant be both wild and belong. Nature itself teaches us that.

So. Be bold. Experience yourself and dive in deep into your senses. Find yourself there at the centre. It will probably be good for you and the others around you. You will probably have more fun to boot.